Climate Changing Behaviours

Sustainable Scotland Network has published a report highlighting a key resource that the public sector can use to improve low carbon behaviours and practices within the workplace, and as part of projects and initiatives in partnership with others.

Launched at the annual SSN conference, held on 1 November in Glasgow, Climate Changing Behaviours illustrates how the Individual, Social, Material (ISM) framework can be used to inform behaviour change interventions, including those beyond the low carbon agenda.

The report presents transferable learning outcomes synthesised from collaboration and engagement with public sector organisations using ISM between April 2015 and March 2016. It sets out:

- What the ISM framework is

- Brief descriptions of the multiple factors that should be considered in order to achieve substantive and sustainable behaviour change in an organisation

- How ISM helps to develop and deliver climate change policy at the national and local level

- Examples of ideas and actions that arose from ISM workshops

- User insights into the benefits of using ISM, and on when and how to use it

- Examples of how ISM can be used to address complex behavioural issues, or to support change, beyond the low carbon context

The key principle of the ISM framework is that, in order to achieve substantive and sustainable behaviour change, interventions should take account of influencing factors across multiple contexts: Individual, Social and Material. The approach is beneficial as it encourages broader scoping and deeper analysis of complex challenges within multi-stakeholder forums to deliver a more integrated and collaborative suite of interventions.

The report is a follow-up to the Stimulating Change report published in May 2015 that presented progress and findings from the first year of the programme.